Thursday, February 26, 2015

Broken teeth and bent fingers. My scars and injuries - part 1.

Hows your head today?
Got a sore back or maybe a stiff neck?
Do you have any part of your body that hurts at the moment?
I think that most people out there reading this have an ailment of some sorts that causes you at least a little bit of discomfort. If you don't then you are lucky!

So where is this heading you wonder? Well, its all about what happened yesterday when I had a bowl of pretend weetabix. (It was a cheap imitation of Weetabix made by Sainsburys - the wheat bix are actually rectangular and a little harder that real Weetabix, but still taste the same) Now, I am not blaming Sainsbury's, the pretend weetabix or anyone apart from myself for what happened next.....

My dodgy teeth

I chewed a little on the left and a little on the right hand side of my mouth and then suddenly bit down into what I thought was a bit of glass. Weird I thought and carefully reached inside my mouth to remove the foreign object. I stared at it and realised that the small hard white lump was in fact - Half of one of my own teeth. Yep - the fault was entirely my own - probably from my youth when I enjoyed things such as 'sugar sandwiches'.

My teeth were always a bit dodgy as a kid. I remember visiting the dentist once to have a check up and leaving a couple of hours later having been knocked out so that the dentist could add 7 of my teeth to his jar of samples sitting on his shelf. Luckily, they were my 1st set and my adult ones (or at least whats left of them), are still in working order.

So this afternoon I have an appointment to visit the dentist and get something done to repair the damage - what he will do I don't yet know. If you look at the photo below you will see that there isn't that much 'real tooth' left - Its all metal and amalgam, so I have no idea what going to happen. Ill let you know later...

Big hole.

You can see the big hole on the right hand side. There should be the side of a toot there instead of the gap. Luckily, its not too sore at the moment.

Anyway, as I lay in bad last night I wondered about the rest of my teeth, which mostly have fillings. Then I wondered about the rest of my body and thought it would be interesting for me as well as everyone else to see the scars and breakage's I have had over the years - plus the stories that tell yo how they happened. For today I will start with my fingers!!!

Trapped in a door - aged about 9.

So, lets begin....
When we were kids living in Moss Vale Road, there was a lot of messing about in the house - Darts thrown at each other, smashed windows, balls hit onto the motorway and lots of injuries. One of my favourites though was when for reasons unknown I chased Chris upstairs. He hid in his bedroom and slammed the door shut just at I reached it. My hands went out to try and stop the door from closing but failed. I remember looking at the closed door and especially to the hinged side of the door, where the little finger of my left hand was trapped between the door and the frame. The door was completely shut and if you take a look at any normal door you will see that there is only a few millimetres at the most between the door and the frame.

I remember yelling to Chris to open the door and I think he only did so when he noticed my blood running down the inside of the door frame in his bedroom. I wish we had had a camera phone like today to get a good photo, but unfortunately one was never taken and we rushed to hospital where it was carefully bandage up for the next few weeks. I honestly don't know how serious it was but I have 'a kids memory' of seeing just bone hanging off my left hand.

What I do know is that if I showed you a photo of my fingers now you would see that the finger in question is visibly thinner than the normal sized finger on my right hand.

In fact - here you go take a look!!

One normal size and one thinner!

Basketball - aged 33 1/2

When I was working in Northern Ireland, we had regular Basketball games as part of PT. As a person of reduced height, I was never very good at the game. However, one Friday morning the ball was thrown my way and I reached out to catch it. Unfortunately, my timing was out and the ball smacked against my outstretched finger. Breaking it instantly.

I was due to go on a three week rigging course on the Sunday, to learn how to safely climb the radio masts that you see on nearly every hilltop. So , instead of visiting the doctor I just carried on and spent the next 3 weeks climbing towers and masts with a bent finger that I avoided using as much as I can. Its all OK though because you cant see anything on my finger now - It looks completely normal....honest.....

See, there's no lump - Its normal - of course it is!

Poker Finger - Aged 37 1/4 - (and quite drunk)

My last finger story happened when I visited Norway with my last Army Unit. We were there for 6 weeks in a beautiful place called Brekstad in Norway. Its a stunning place and still the only place I have ever been to where you could smell how clean the air was.
However, there isn't that much going on there. Even the locals find strange ways to entertain themselves - such as dressing as Elvis and riding mini motorbikes through supermarkets.......don't believe me? Here you go - this is Brekstad...

Anyway, as we were there for 6 weeks and there wasn't much to do we started a regular poker evening when we were off shift - I joined a couple of German officers an soldiers, two Danes a Norwegian and a couple of Brits, sitting around with a few beers and Jack Daniels, playing poker till the early hours before sleeping it off before a night shift.

Whilst there we had a huge storm one night that blew down trees and tents. We were playing that night and at one point, late in the evening, I went outside to the toilet. However, the wind slammed the door closed unexpectedly and smashes the metal door into my finger. I dint feel much pain and carried on playing with my finger wrapped up in toilet paper.

However, when I got up the next day I looked at the finger and saw that the door had done a really good job of messing it up. Both the topside and underneath of the finger had large gashes and it was bruised and swollen.

A photo of my Poker finger - the day after.

As usual I didn't really do anything about it, except change the toilet paper wrapping it up and the electrical tape that held the toilet paper on. Hahaa. Oh well, its a good scar now...

Nice drunk scar!

The scar on the underneath is no so faint it doesn't show up on photos, but if you ever want to see it just ask.

So my fingers are messed up and my teeth - whats left of them - are falling out - what else can I tell you? Well if you take a look again in a few days Ill tell you about falling in rose bushes whilst naked, riding a bike through a wooden fence and losing two pints of blood in a German hospital....not so cool!!